1st Edition

A Beginner's Guide To Mathematica

By David McMahon, Daniel M. Topa Copyright 2006
    736 Pages 141 B/W Illustrations
    by Chapman & Hall

    736 Pages
    by Chapman & Hall

    Because of its large command structure and intricate syntax, Mathematica can be difficult to learn. Wolfram's Mathematica manual, while certainly comprehensive, is so large and complex that when trying to learn the software from scratch -- or find answers to specific questions -- one can be quickly overwhelmed.

    A Beginner's Guide to Mathematica offers a simple, step-by-step approach to help math-savvy newcomers build the skills needed to use the software in practice. Concise and easy to use, this book teaches by example and points out potential pitfalls along the way. The presentation starts with simple problems and discusses multiple solution paths, ranging from basic to elegant, to gradually introduce the Mathematica toolkit. More challenging and eventually cutting-edge problems follow. The authors place high value on notebook and file system organization, cross-platform capabilities, and data reading and writing. The text features an array of error messages you will likely encounter and clearly describes how to deal with those situations.

    While it is by no means exhaustive, this book offers a non-threatening introduction to Mathematica that will teach you the aspects needed for many practical applications, get you started on performing specific, relatively simple tasks, and enable you to build on this experience and move on to more real-world problems.

    INTRODUCTION AND SURVEY
    Why Mathematica?
    Notebooks
    Entering data
    Data structures
    Programming
    Standard add-on packages
    Miscellaneous packages
    Palettes
    Other resources
    In conclusion

    COMPUTATION EXAMPLES
    The quadratic equation
    Singular matrices and inversion
    Linear regression
    An inverse problem

    GRAPHICS EXAMPLES
    Graphics primitives
    Plotting in two dimensions
    Pictionary of 2D graphic types
    Plotting in three dimensions
    Rotation through parity states

    ORDINARY DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
    Defining, entering and solving differential equations

    TRANSFORMS
    Properties of linear integral transforms
    The Laplace transform
    The Fourier transform
    The z-transform

    INTEGRATION
    Basic integrals: polynomials and rational functions
    Multivariate expressions
    Definite integration
    Integrals involving the Dirac delta function
    Using the Integrate command
    Monte Carlo integration

    SPECIAL FUNCTIONS
    The Gamma function
    The Bessel functions
    The Riemann zeta function
    Working with Legendre and other polynomials
    Spherical harmonics

    Appendices
    References
    Index

    Biography

    David McMahon, Daniel M. Topa